Infection rate was highest in our more city/rural areas of the state
Interestingly, the cumulative cases per 100,000 shows that the counties with the highest COVID rates were in our urban/town/rural county group (22,424 per 100,000) and our town/rural county group (21,998 per 100,000). These were following by entirely urban county group (20,324 per 100,000) and our entirely urban group (18,568 per 100,000). One would think that the counties with the densest population would have the highest case rate. However, one theory is that both the urban/town/rural counties and the town/rural counties were just dense enough to spread the virus while also being more reluctant to take precautions to stop the spread.
Highest death rates from COVID are in our rural areas
Most interesting is that although our most rural areas had the lowest cumulative cases per 100,000, they unfortunately had the highest death rate of all counties. Entirely rural counties had a death rate of 275 per 100,000 throughout the pandemic. The lowest was in our entirely urban counties with 188 deaths per 100,000. This is most likely due to the fact that rural areas have a larger percentage of their population that is older, sicker, and have a higher percentage of people with co-morbidity. In addition, it likely has to do with the fact mentioned in our next highlight….
Significantly lower vaccination rates in rural areas
The highest vaccination rate exists in our entirely urban counties with around 75% of their population having the full series of shots. Our rural areas had between 60% and 65% of their population with the full series of shots. The lowest percentages exist in the counties just north of the twin cities metro where many of those counties barely have 50% of their population vaccinated with not even one shot. There were some rural regions that were surprising however. Counties in Southwest and Northeast in particular had some of the highest vaccination rates in Greater Minnesota.
Active cases are estimates of the current number of people currently infected with COVID-19. This estimate is calculated by subtracting the number of cumulative cases for each day minus the total cumulative cases from two weeks prior.
The trend lines of active cases per 100,000 show a wave like pattern as we would expect in a pandemic, with the first wave occurring during the 2020-2021 fall, then the delta wave, and the most recent omicron wave.
Although all regions and county groups follow this trend, counties and regions in rural areas of the state had higher peaks throughout the pandemic, particularly in the 2020-2021 fall wave. The urban/town/rural mix and town/rural mix had some of the highest rates in the state. However, the most recent omicron wave has been slightly lower in our entirely rural and town/rural mix counties compared to the other county groups.
This trend follows into regional breakdowns where our more rural areas of the state had higher peak rates compared to the seven county metro. The most recent omicron wave has hit the Southeast particularly hard.
The charts below are the cumulative COVID cases.
The urban/town/rural mix and town/rural mix county groups have the highest cumulative case rate in the state with 22,424 and 21,998 per 100,000 as of February 1st, 2022. Our entirely rural county group has remained slightly below compared to the other county groups As of February 1st, 2022, they had a cumulative COVID case rate of 18,569 per 100,000 which was the lowest out of all the RUCA groups.
When broken down by region, the Central and Southeast planning regions have the highest cumulative cases per 100,000 with 24,432 and 24,058 respectively. The lowest rates have been in the seven county metro and Northeast Minneapolis.